


And If I Laughed A Bit Too Fast (Well It Was Up To Me)

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Cirque de Triomphe [19]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Class Issues, Concerts, Creating A Diversion, Earth-3, F/M, Gotham City - Freeform, Guitars, Humor, Jokester is a one-man cover band, Mirror Universe, Music, Performance Art, Public Monuments, Public Relations, the day-glo pirate sings at last
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 22:57:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8597041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: In which the Jokester sings, the police object, Justice presides, and the Owlman once again fails to be in control of the situation.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Playlist for this story! Strongly recommended, go ahead and queue it up on youtube: Leonard Cohen’s ‘Anthem,’ Don McLean’s ‘American Pie,’ and The Clash’s ‘Know Your Rights.’ Chapter title is from a Jethro Tull song ('Up to Me') because reasons.

She didn't quite come up to his shoulder, when they both straightened up from checking the last amp. He stooped again, to bring their faces closer.

"Big gig tonight, honey," she said, dropping a fond peck at the corner of his mouth. "Feeling ready?"

"Born ready, love. You?"

"Hey," she grinned. "I'm just the roadie."

He stifled his cackle and bent in for one more soft, quick little kiss for luck, hands clasped for a moment, and they split up. She vanished seamlessly into the crowd.

Everyone else was already at the alpha site. Jokester was handling this end by himself. He waited eight minutes, enjoying the evening, people-watching. Everything was peaceful. None of their surreptitious preparations over the last several days had raised any red flags. This was because they were _really good._

Robinson Square, considered a major tourist attraction for reasons Jokester had never entirely grasped since there was nothing to _do_ in the square itself except enjoy the monument. (And okay, buy food, but that was out around the edges, there was all this _space_.) Opposite the opera house, the wide open square was presided over by a fourteen-foot bronze statue, very close to an exact recreation of the mighty Lady Gotham who stood over the harbor: Justice blindfolded, with a naked sword in her one hand and an imbalanced set of scales in the other.

Jokester had always wondered about the symbolism there.

There used to be two wide-eyed bronze owls at her feet, supposedly symbolizing wisdom in the tradition of Minerva, but someone had filed their narrow legs away and carried them off at some point earlier this year, either as a political statement about the Court or as a financial opportunity to melt down some bronze—in this city, who could say. Maybe both. J was pulling for both. They'd be replaced soon enough; Wayne would see to it. But for now there was a gap at the feet of Justice.

Jokester hauled himself and the first of three guitars up onto the empty front of the bronze plinth where the owls used to be, and looked around at the milling crowd.

Robinson Square at seven, on a September Friday night. The shops and restaurants around here were fairly upscale, but you got a lot of through-traffic from the lower-income neighborhoods on either side, and practically half the 'everyone' out on a night like this were that easily enthused group known as college students, because Gotham University was only two rail stops away, and the semester was new.

He threw back his head, threw off his hat and coat of anonymity, and let out a long, delighted cackle as the lights came up on him and down around the margins of the square, and he struck a single reverberating chord. Wiring, check. Mic, check. All speakers go.

Even before anyone turned to look at him, saw long purple hair or his nice leaf-green suit with the flashy gold trim, or his big red grin, they knew who he was. Everyone in Gotham knew that laugh, by now. And to his intense delight, a large proportion of the faces turning toward him on his appropriated stage were lighting up with smiles. They were _looking forward_ to his show. Oh, some perfectly sensible people were hurrying away and some jerks were scowling (also probably some non-jerks who just had headaches or were in a rush tonight), but those smiles were _so_ real.

He _had_ this. He beamed back.

Slid the guitar pick from his sleeve, and set it to the strings. He struck a soft chord, and members of the audience leaned in. Others leaned back, settling into the sound.

"The birds they sang," he began, slow and gentle. His version was an octave up from the original, just as husky, with some of the notes held a little longer; he'd relearned how to do some things with his scarred voice and accepted there were others he'd never quite get back. "At the break of day. Start again, I heard them say. Don't dwell…on what has passed away. Or what is yet to be.

"Yeah, the wars, they will be fought again…" And it was a _comforting_ song, that was the important thing, the sorrow had to stay always within a step of the triumph.

It was a song that said that at the heart of things the world was _good_. And somehow, that made it okay to cry about the fact that it was broken.

"Ring the bells, that still…can ring. _Forget_ your perfect offering..." The first tears were starting, and J let himself put all of his belief into the refrain. "There is a crack, a crack in everything…"

They'd started swaying. Everybody who hadn't left was committed, now, even the ones who'd just been passing through. Until they had to leave, they were _here,_ watching his concert at the feet of blind, bronze Justice.

"I can't run no more, with that lawless crowd. While the killers in high places sing their prayers out loud…"

Even when you were the only one on stage, performance wasn't something you could do alone.

"There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. _That's how the light gets in._ " _It's okay_ , Jokester told the people, his people just as much as anybody he knew by name, his people _his_ city, whatever anyone said, _we can do this. I know it hurts._

"That's how the light gets in..."

_I know it hurts but we can go ahead and face that and it will all be okay. Go on and cry, let it out, we don't have to hide from it. It doesn't have to be perfect to be_ _**good** _ _._

_"That's how the light…gets…in…."_

He let the applause rise and die down, let the sticky hush of catharsis fade enough to start cracking away in sheets, and then just as the mood was about to shift toward impatience struck up a melodic line that everybody recognized. A few laughs rose out of the crowd, and he laughed back, before making himself grow a little grave, because the verses of this song didn't call for cheer even if the melody did.

"A long long time ago, I can still remember…how that music used to make me smile. And I knew if I had my chance, that I could make those people dance, and maybe they'd be happy for a while…. But February made me shiver, with every paper I'd deliver…"

His cover version for this evening was pretty different from Don McLean's. About half the length, for one thing; he'd ruthlessly culled verses in rehearsal.

Louder! "So bye, bye, Miss American Pie! Drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry. And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye…." The balance of humor and melancholy wasn't the same either, partly because without so many jaunty backup instruments on the refrain he _had_ to sing a little brighter to keep everyone from noticing how grim the words really were, and feeling betrayed.

"…and moss grows fat on a rolling stone…" It was its own proof, this song, because it was so easy to bring the smiles out like this, easier than any sort of talking, because even the best jokes had to be timed and spaced a little around the listeners but the song shaped a space around itself.

"…when the jester sang for the king and queen, in a coat he borrowed from James Dean," he shimmied his shoulders here a little, to general hilarity, "and a voice that came, from you and me…"

Having claimed the jester's identity, there was then slight risk of declaring himself the new messiah if he delivered the second half of the verse wrong, but it was easy to make it a whimsical, puckish theft of crown.

"Everybody!" And they joined in, his two-hundred-odd hijacked audience, almost every one of 'em. Bright and loud and so in love with life, because that was what this was _for._ Without the amps his guitar would have been entirely drowned out. " _Bye, bye, Miss American Pie! Drove my Chevy to the levee…_ "

It wasn't even a city song, but that didn't matter. It was an American song, that was good enough.

"...the church bells all were broken. And those three men I admire most, the father son and the holy ghost, they took the last train for the coast, the day…the music…died."

Softly now, and every time you heard this song it was surprising, how the bright proud near-nonsense went so mournful at the end, the cathartic swell of nameless loss swelling up from inside your ribs. "…whiskey and rye, and singin' this'll be the day that I die..." The guitar fell silent; Jokester laid his hand over the strings to stop them ringing.

"This'll be the day that I…die…"

He stared down at his audience, grim and distant suddenly, and they stared back. No one breathed.

Until he filled his lungs in one huge gust, smiled, struck the chord again and, " _Together now! They were singin', bye, bye Miss American Pie…!_ "

One last refrain all of them together, belting it out enough to ricochet back from the face of the opera house, which he imagined that building bore with a stupendously unruffled affront. It was accustomed to the sound of much more practiced voices. Defiantly joyful, J and his audience concluded with a long, drawn out, " _diiiiiiiiiiiiie!"_ This time, he let his instrument sing itself silent.

Then when one voice and then another called out for 'more!' 'sing another one!' he let loose his biggest warmest grin, and unslung his acoustic guitar in favor of the one that knew how to scream.

"Alright, at least one more," he allowed, running through a rapid run of notes to make sure it was still tuned right. "With all respect to The Clash," he announced, raising the hand with a guitar pick in it, "This is a public service announcement. With _guitar!_ "

The pick came down, and the final number was on. He let the jangling chords run through the crowd, tightening their shoulders and pricking the emotion the last two songs had pooled liquid into throat and thorax to rush up into mouth and palm, crackling, and when he could see breath coming short with expectation, he sang out.

"Number one!" He was no Joe Strummer, wasn't even the singer he'd been _himself_ before the acid, but this wasn't a song that demanded perfect pitch or fabulous breath control, either, let alone honey-sweet mellifluousness. This was a song that needed you to be sarcastic, and pugnacious, and _loud_. And he could do that.

"You have the right," he called out, " _not_ to be killed. Murder is a _crime!_ Unless it was done…by a policeman. Or, an aristocrat!" There were whoops of shocked laughter as he waggled meaningful eyebrows at the gleaming spear of Wayne Tower thrusting upward into the sky, and everybody knew just who he meant.

Nobody could prove anything, of course, but there was blood on Bruce Wayne's hands. Not many people were inclined to deny it.

"And number two…!" He laid two fingers straight along the body of the guitar for a split second, letting the strings hum their way almost silent before his left hand went back to work. "You have the right…to _food money_. Provided, of course…"

Heads were bobbing again, and people were _smiling_ , angry kinds of smiles now a lot of them but it was still a concert and they were still having fun, and sometimes J wished he could just turn his back on this whole crusade and spend all his time performing for normal audiences. It wouldn't be the same with lower stakes, though, and…well, if he didn't watch out for everybody, who would?

" _Know_ your rights!"

It was said that Strummer had cried, when he heard that bomber pilots had started using one of his songs as their anthem. Surviving former members of the band, when asked to comment on Jokester's use of 'Radio Clash' (actually a mashup of both versions rather than a direct cover of either) in his consciousness-raising signal hijack last year, had ranged from noncommittal to outright pleased. They were safely in England, after all, and even _Owlman_ wasn't likely to send assassins after retired punk rockers for affirming that taking their songs literally was okay with them. It wasn't like there'd been any profits for J in taking over everyone's radios and TVs, so his unlicensed use hadn't cost them anything—not that they'd ever cared much about that kind of thing.

"These are your rights!"

He launched into the instrumental bridge, winking at his most enthusiastic audience members as he measured how long it had been since he'd started the show. Eight minutes? Nine? By now, all official attention was probably on him. Bruce Wayne hated him almost as much as Owlman did, and between them they controlled pretty much every official in Gotham.

"Oh, _know_ these rights!"

Police response time to the middle of the city, at the foot of the shining towers, was quite good. "Number three!" Jokester called out, as the riot shields closed in, up along the streets that fed into the Square. It was a pedestrian precinct these days, so they didn't have to worry about cars. "You have the right…to _free speech_. As long as…you're not dumb enough to actually _try_ it!" He laughed, sharp and bright.

The parts of his audience nearest the streets had started to notice the police presence, whispering to those next to them, huddling inward almost unconsciously as they found themselves surrounded.

" _Know_ these rights!" he called out. "These are your rights."

He squinted. Were they that stupid? Yeah, they were that stupid. They'd brought the tear gas. For a group of people doing nothing more disruptive than listening to a song first released in _1982_. (A mixed-race group of folks with _money,_ no less, which would be a lot harder to spin on the teevee than if he'd done this somewhere less upmarket.) It wasn't like it was hard to get a recording.

The combined hate of Bruce Wayne and Owlman was a very powerful thing.

" _Aaaaall_ three of 'em. Hah!"

 _His_ gas bombs went off first, right under the feet of the riot police, and they fell to the ground like dominoes, laughing helplessly. Their stomach muscles would be sore when they woke up, and so would their heads, but they were all wearing helmets, so no one was getting badly concussed when they went down. Perfect.

"And it has been suggested in some quarters," he sang out over their collapsing giggles, "that this is _not enough!_ Well…get off the streets!" He took his hands off the guitar for a second to wave urgently at the shaken crowd of shoppers, gesturing them down the now-unblocked streets away from the square. The purple clouds were already dispersing. "Get off the streets!" _Before more police come, and arrest you for being here when I started singing._

They got it. Hastily gathering their things, people flowed away up all seven streets, waving away the remnants of the purple fumes that had felled the police, some of whom got stepped on, but he didn't spot any outright trampling. Some innocent bystanders vanished into restaurants and shops instead, which he hoped would be enough.

Some of these people were going to be really, really mad at him. He'd spoiled their Friday night. But, this was the thing: _he_ hadn't spoiled it. He'd done nothing but sing, and get them out safely when the authorities acted even crazier than _him_. And video of the whole thing was going to be available. He'd made sure of it.

And he hoped the cameras were still rolling, because as he played the final bars of the song and raised his eyes to the skyline, ahead of even the second wave of police, Owlman with his feathered cloak spread wide was making his silent descent into the square. Oh, he was _mad_. "Ahahahah!"

The grand swooping approach was very impressive, of course, but it also gave J plenty of time to duck back beneath the imbalanced scales of Justice and scoot into the dead space behind the statue. He scrambled up the bronzy folds of Justice's back while the Owl was still landing. Perched for a moment on her shoulder, and met the Owl's masked eyes with a gleeful smirk.

Then, with a flying leap, Jokester satisfied a long-nurtured yearning, and smashed Owlman over the head with an electric guitar.

The photograph someone took through a café window made the front page of three different publications. (None of them, of course, Gotham-based.)

The videos did pretty well, too, getting from forty to ninety seconds on every major news station, and while J had held all the Owl's and the police's attention with his illegal concert, the rest of the gang had liberated precisely eighty percent of all the medical supplies stockpiled in Bruce Wayne's privately endowed hospital. The free clinic would operate for months on this haul, and as a final tweak of the Owl's beak, the good electric guitar that J had stowed behind the statue on his way up her back, the acoustic he'd left in front, _and_ all the sound equipment abandoned at the scene, disappeared from the evidence lockers at police headquarters by next morning.

**Author's Note:**

> …so I think J might be an anarcho-socialist. :D The original ‘American Pie’ is nearly nine minutes long; Jokester sang only verses one, three, and six. (This means cutting out the bit where the marching band refused to yield, which is a shame, but practicality!)
> 
> Robinson Square is technically supposed to closely resemble Times Square, but Times Square is ugly in addition to not at all square and New York City exists in the DCU, so in my head it's more of a mashup of Times Square and that plaza in front of the Metropolitan and New York Opera Houses. Only with a statue.


End file.
